CENIC Board Appoints New President

Cypress, Calif., July 1, 2004 --
The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) has announced the selection of James Dolgonas to serve as its president. Tom West, CENIC's prior president left CENIC on June 30th to assume his new position as CEO of the National LambdaRail. CENIC, a not-for-profit consortium founded by California's higher education community, is a global leader in the development and implementation of the next generation of network services.

With over 25 years of management and executive experience in all facets of higher education information technology, Dolgonas has the essential complement of skills and experience to work collaboratively and creatively with CENIC's charter associates as well as state and national constituencies. His university-wide project leadership in policy and strategic planning will be invaluable as CENIC enters into its eighth year of operation. Dolgonas' appointment begins July 1, 2004.

Most recently, Dolgonas was the chief operating officer of CENIC, a role that he will continue as President. Prior to joining CENIC, he served as assistant vice president for information systems and computing in the Office of the President of the University of California system.

John Silvester, Chair of the CENIC Board of Directors, said, "When Jim joined CENIC as COO two years ago, he brought extensive experience in directing complex projects in the broad California education context. This has been invaluable to CENIC and the Board has utmost confidence that his expanded role will allow CENIC to continue to prosper as it moves forward with CalREN the advanced multi-layer fiber-based network for the research and education community of California. Jim's two years of CENIC experience will be of enormous benefit in navigating the inherently challenging environment that brings together higher education and K-12 communities, public and private research organizations, and government partners. This is a particularly exciting time for CENIC as the fiber backbone is fully operational and we are able to light additional waves enabling high-end research and network experiments as never before."

About Cenic

CENIC is a not-for-profit corporation serving California Institute of Technology, California State University, Stanford University, University of California, University of Southern California, California Community Colleges and the statewide K-12 school system. CENIC's mission is to facilitate and coordinate the development, deployment and operation of a set of robust multi-tiered advanced network services for this research and education community.